


Wild Heart

by Hope_less_romantic



Series: A Zutara fic for every Bleachers song [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Agni Kai (Avatar), Bleachers, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Complete, Episode s03e09: Nightmares and Daydreams, Episode: s01e10 The Storm, Episode: s02e20 The Crossroads of Destiny, Episode: s03e01 The Awakening, Episode: s03e02 The Headband, Episode: s03e05 The Beach, Episode: s03e06 The Avatar and the Fire Lord, Episode: s03e10 The Day of Black Sun Part 1: The Invasion, Episode: s03e10-11 The Day of Black Sun, Episode: s03e11 The Day of Black Sun Part 2: The Eclipse, F/M, Fire Lady Katara, Fire Lord Zuko, Flashbacks, Inspired by Music, One Shot, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, POV Zuko (Avatar), Post-Canon, Short One Shot, Song: Wild Heart (Bleachers), Songfic, Zuko (Avatar)-centric, Zuko's Scar (Avatar), fuck bryke, i love jack antonoff lmao, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:07:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24804424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope_less_romantic/pseuds/Hope_less_romantic
Summary: Sometimes Zuko wonders if his horrible Agni Kai and banishment or his struggles - with his nation, his destiny, and himself...if all his hardships were worth it. But then he sees her smile.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: A Zutara fic for every Bleachers song [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794088
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	Wild Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I'm obsessed with Bleachers, and so many of their songs fit Zutara. So I challenged myself to write a fic for every song. Here's the first one! Now, these fics are ordered in the track order, not in chronological order, so I think once they're all published I'll go back and make two more series (as there are two continuities within these one shots), those ones in chronological order.
> 
> Basically everything in here is like canon level, except it goes into a bit of detail about Zuko's scar and the healing process. Some of the flashback dialogue/information is taken directly from the show, or Zuko's prequel comic and "The Search". (Which aren't canon, but it's easier to steal from them than to try to get a read on Ozai or make up Fire Nation traditions lol.) I put a lot of effort in to keeping literally everything canon except the very ending, the only difference is that you see Zuko's thought process throughout. This was tough, considering in early season three he's pretty WACK and like ridiculously OOC, especially in "The Beach", and I hate it, but I wanted to show all those little ways that Zutara is still pretty damn canon. Bryke just made Aang their self-insert so he HAD to get the girl. 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

The Fire Lord sits in his study and looks over a proposition from the Earth Kingdom to impose sanctions on the Northern Water Tribe until they agree to help their sister tribe with rebuilding. He knew the first few years after the war would be the hardest, but Spirits was this terrible. Every move, every decision, every little choice he made seemed to have boundless political repercussions. Was he endorsing this? Shaming that? At the last big meeting with the Fire Council and various noblemen of the country, he’d served wine to the attendees and apparently picked sides in an argument between two men who owned neighboring vineyards and both claimed the same bit of land between them.

Zuko sighs and rubs his eyes, dropping his head in his hands. 

He was tired, he was confused, and he was more than a little fed up. Trials for those involved in the war were still ongoing, and he knew by the end of them all his army would be small and his prisons overflowed. 

The other nations needed reparations, both in money and physical assistance as they rebuilt. He was happy to provide all the aid he could, but they needed so much help and the Fire Nation had to rebuild as well. The village his friends had described to him, the one destroyed by pollution from a Fire Army factory, was far from unique. It was clear to Zuko that his predecessors didn’t care very much about their people, or at least not at an individual level. 

Was it all really worth this new life?

Zuko had lost his mother and his cousin when he was only eleven. He’d then endured abuse and manipulation from his father and sister ten times worse than before. He’d been indoctrinated into a culture of imperialism and superiority, hearing all throughout his childhood that his nation and his family were superior and deserved all the glory in the world.

Even with the presumption and arrogance he was surrounded and seduced by, he’d still been a source of shame for his father, and suffered for it. Azula was born lucky. He was lucky to be born. It was what his father had reminded him day after day when he couldn’t master firebending like Azula could, when he cared too much, when he spoke out of turn, when he expressed himself, whenever he was less than perfect.

He knows now, perfect in his father’s eyes is something he could never achieve. And if he had? Well, that would be a real reason to be ashamed.

And then he’d just wanted to go to a war meeting. He’d just wanted to show his father he was capable. That he was worthy of love and respect. 

When he’d heard the general’s plans to send new recruits into battle as a diversion, like koala-lambs to the slaughter, he’d spoken out before he knew what he was doing. What he had known was that it was wrong, and that he’d hated it. 

_“You can’t sacrifice an entire division like that! Those soldiers love and defend our nation! How can you betray them!?”_

_“Prince Zuko! How dare you speak out of turn and oppose your superior! It is not your place to dispute General Himura’s plans, and to do so is an act of complete disrespect. There is only one response to your insolence, an Agni Kai!”_

_Zuko turned to General Himura, who must be a cowardly man to sacrifice their new recruits as a distraction instead of launching an invasion honorably._

_“I am not afraid. I accept.”_

_At sundown, the Agni Kai began. Zuko may not have been as powerful as his sister, but he knew he could take a cowardly, and likely weak, old man. He had been confident, but when he turned to face Himura, he saw a face he’d never expect to oppose in a dueling arena. His father, Fire Lord Ozai._

_Zuko fell to his knees, both in shock and submission. He couldn’t believe his father was prepared to duel him. Everyone knew who would win. But of course it was Ozai, he may have spoken against a general, but it was in the Fire Lord’s war room. Any disrespect in the Fire Lord’s sanctum is disrespect to the Fire Lord himself._

_He could feel tears begin to well in his eyes as he bowed to Ozai, “Please Father! I only had the Fire Nation’s best interests at heart. I’m sorry for speaking out of turn!”_

_“You **will** fight for your honor!”_

_“I meant you no disrespect! I am your loyal son.”_

_“Rise and **fight** Prince Zuko!”_

_“I won’t fight you.”_

_“You **will** learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher!”_

_All Zuko could see as he looked up with tears rushing down his cheeks, was his father’s angry face. And then he raised his fist with white-hot flames blazing, and Zuko felt the worst pain he could ever imagine._

_He woke up in the Palace medical chambers. He reached up to feel his damaged eye, and hissed at the pain of his bandages rubbing against the skin edging the burn. He couldn’t see anything from his left eye, and he prayed to the Spirits it was only because of the bandages._

_His father stood above him, looking disgusted._

_“Prince Zuko, you have shown yourself to be unworthy of the crown and unfit to stand upon the land of our noble ancestors. You are therefore stripped of your birthright and banished from the Fire Nation until you can prove your worth.”_

_Ozai turned and made his way to the door. Right before exiting, he turned back to his son, “I hope you will not be arrogant enough to keep your full head of hair after losing to the Fire Lord,” he sneered in cruel amusement, “No one likes a sore loser.”_

Zuko pulls himself out of his memories and shakes his head to clear it. That was a long time ago. His father’s barbarism could no longer affect him.

Well, it did, but only in the ruined economy and society of the Fire Nation. Zuko no longer flinches when he enters the war room, nor does he feel the stab of pain and resentment in his chest when someone describes him as lucky in any capacity.

But his new life as Fire Lord, somehow boring and hard at the same time, and even all the strength he’d gained, doesn’t quite seem worth all his pain. Those three, almost four, years of searching desperately for the Avatar all across the globe, they weren’t fun. He’d had to face his father and his sister, two people who should have loved him unconditionally, and realize that they were twisted, evil people with no hope of being saved. He’d struggled with, and eventually accepted, the fact that nearly everything he’d learned throughout his childhood about the Hundred Year War and the man who started it was wrong. That what he was doing was wrong. He’d fallen into anger and hatred of himself more than once, despising himself for his actions, and the world around him for driving him to make them.

Really, was all that worth it?

And then his wife strides into his study with a smile on her face and makes her way to his side to give him a kiss. Katara settles into his lap and strokes his cheek tenderly, then snuggles into his chest and rests her head on his shoulder as she reads over the documents in his hand curiously.

“How’s my favorite Fire Lord doing today?”

He closes his eyes and leans into her hand. He can’t feel anything where Ozai burned him all those years ago, but he thinks he can always make out a ghost of his wife’s touch. She doesn’t even have to use her healing, there’s just something about her that makes the impossible seem otherwise. 

“Better, now that you’re here,” he answers with a smile. 

Thinking back, that’s sort of always been the case. His day has always been made better when Katara was around, even if that just meant Aang was close by. Really, even his past self, angry and stupid as he may have been, could appriciate her glowing brown skin and fierce blue eyes that never lost the love in them.

Even throughout his stupid decisions, his betrayal, and his repeated attempts to hurt them, she’s always seen right through him. She may not have trusted him, but she’d always known that beneath all the anger and hatred and animosity, he was really a scared kid who wasn’t sure what was right. Even when she’d yelled at him beneath Ba Sing Se, called him a terrible person and declared that as the Fire Lord’s son he was only capable of evil. Even when she blamed him for her mother, she knew. This time, she’d been the one covering things up with her anger, because she’d known that all he needed was to see the light. And honestly? She could have been just the person to help him. 

When he’d offered up the story of his mother, desperate for her not to hate him, not even knowing why, she’d remembered the truth she’d always known. Her heart and hand reached out to him, and he took it. And really, he’d never let go. She’d apologized, and he’d confessed that he was considering choosing his own destiny. She’d even offered to heal his scar. And when she’d brushed her fingers across it, he’d known she was special, that she probably could heal it. Especially with that Spirit Water. Uncle had told him in their weeks at sea that the water from the Spirit Oasis could reverse death if the soul hadn’t left the body yet; he’d never imagined they’d give that away to the Avatar’s waterbending master. 

But despite all this, he’d still been weak. He’d longed for his father’s love, convinced he had no one else’s. And he’d betrayed her. He’d fought her and the Avatar, and he’d stood aside in horror as Azula killed him. 

_“I thought you had changed!”_ she had yelled as they fought.

 _“I have changed,”_ he’d responded, and he had. He finally knew the truth, he just forced himself to ignore it.

 _“She has the Spirit Water,”_ he’d thought, trying to excuse it all. He’d get to go home, see the people and land he missed. His father would welcome him back with love, perhaps even hug him. His honor would be restored. It was everything Zuko had wanted.

And yet, it still didn’t feel right. All he could see when he went to bed every night was Katara, holding the Avatar’s body with a look of pure despair. He knew, even if he was loosening his grip on her hand, he still grasped her finger tips. 

He’d kept a hold on them as he made his way through the beginning of the life he’d always wanted. Terrified of losing it if the Avatar resurfaced, he’d hired an assassin. And as soon as he’d gotten home, he’d collapsed on his bed and screamed, _“Stupid stupid idiot why would you do that it’s not right he’s a child-”_

This had run through his head on repeat, even as he’d tried to make it work with Mai. But she just hadn’t got it, hadn’t got him. He hadn’t been sure he’d made all the right choices, but she hadn’t seemed to care about his inner turmoil. Whenever he’d been concerned, her emotionless face had seemed to say _“Why do you care so much? Why are you so freaked out? You’re the Fire Prince, what do you have to worry about?”_ She’d mostly wanted to kiss and laze about in that privileged way only royals could. He’d given her gifts, tried to be thoughtful, just like a boyfriend should. She’d just disregarded it, hadn’t even cared that he’d wanted them to be happy, he really had. And even though he’d fought with her and had no fun throughout their tiring relationship, he’d still gotten jealous of Ruon-Jian. She was the one who’d really wanted it, she was the one who had a crush on him when they were kids. And she still couldn’t keep her eyes off some idiot jock at a house party? She’d been chatting with him! She never chatted with anyone! He’d gotten angry, and he’d shoved Ruon-Jian. And then she’d yelled at him for not keeping his temper under control, and declared their relationship over. If he had been honest with himself, he would have known that it was a relief, a weight off his shoulders. But he’d still been deluding himself, and he’d still thought he wanted a perfect Fire Nation girlfriend.

The thought occurred to him once or twice that he needed Katara to lecture some sense into him, maybe smack him with a water whip a few times.

But he tried to make up with her, with Azula, with Ty Lee. They’d attempted to have a group therapy session, like they were normal teens with normal problems just contemplating their place in the Universe instead of four of the most important teens in the world at the time, each with a crucial role to play in the war they’d had no choice but to fight in.

He’d told them he was angry at himself, which was true, but he’d told them he didn’t know the difference between right and wrong anymore, which was a lie. He’d known the difference, but he’d still purposely chosen wrong and he was furious at himself for it. He’d silently cried himself to sleep that night, aching to reach out and take Katara’s hand properly, like he should have before, but knowing that he didn’t deserve to hold it then.

His uncle’s disappointment had hurt the most. And even though Iroh was so, so disappointed, he’d still sent that letter. As Zuko read the history of his great grandfathers, and heard Iroh explain the truth, he’d known Uncle was right. There was good and evil at war in him, confusing him, the good in his heart, and the evil forced into his mind over and over again. He’d known then his true destiny, to repeat this fight between good and evil carried out between two people who should love each other. Roku and Sozin were best friends and battle brothers. He and Azula were brother and sister. 

And yet, selfishly, he’d stayed just a little bit longer. Mai was being good to him again and it was just so _nice_. He’d even let himself have a petty little Fire Court problem: he hadn’t thought he’d been invited to the war meeting. But he had! He’d gotten to sit at his father’s right hand and give his opinions without fear of getting a flaming fist to his good eye.

But then his opinion had led to Ozai and Azula deciding to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, and he had to admit the time for being selfish was long since past. He’d packed his things and prepared for the Day of Black Sun, writing a note to Mai explaining everything and timing his confrontation with his father so he’d have to listen instead of giving his son another scar.

And finally, he’d grabbed Katara’s hand properly. She pulled him up to his feet...and then tried to pull her hand away in fear of him gaining her trust again just to break it. He deserved it, obviously. But he fought to prove himself to her, and he did. Now her hand grabbed his tightly and pulled him close.

He would never let go again.

And now as they hold each other close once again, thoughts of family dancing at the back of their minds, he decides, definitively, that it was worth it. He’d do it all again, ten times worse, if it meant he could still have Katara. 

“I will need your help on this one though my love, I’m afraid I’m far from understanding Water Tribe politics.”

She tosses her head back and laughs, and for the millionth time he memorizes her every detail. Her big, beautiful blue eyes, her long mahogany tresses she wears in Water Tribe braids pulled up into a Fire Nation top knot that holds her crown perfectly, her golden brown skin that always has that magical glow to it, the slope of her nose, the way her full lips curl in when she genuinely smiles...he could go on. He knows every little bit and bob of her body and he adores each one. Every night in their bed he lays a kiss to every inch of her, thanking the Spirits again and again for blessing him with this goddess.

He would do anything to keep them perfect like this, he knows it.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, my family and I had a huge debate on what degree Zuko's burn was and what level of damage it would have caused. It's weird since the scar's appearance suggests 3rd or 4th degree, but he can still hear and move his eye, suggesting 2nd. Eventually we settled on moderate 3rd degree and concluded that he lost sight in the eye but not movement. He's got a good amount of nerve damage, and his skin is likely leathery and tight. With modern medicine and skin grafting, he would have had a much better time, and if treated quickly enough he may have been able to eventually regain sight. Frustratingly, there isn't much documentation of thermal burns to the eyes and their effects, seeing as a burn like Zuko's is extremely rare. Generally, if your eye is burned your whole face is burned and they're usually more concerned with your ability to breathe.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are appreciated.


End file.
